Monthly Archives: December 2009

I thought this would be a neater and more organized year-end summary, but this is just the way it seemed to come out.

And before we get to this, let me just say that Yoga Nidra and the writing of the “letter to yourself” on New Year’s Eve is just the best. I love this day, and to add to it the opportunity to be soft and open and quiet and reflective is the best gift I can give myself, and my yoga students.

To everyone who has been reading this little blog for the past 5 months, thanks. And of you’ve taken the time to comment, thanks doubly. Happy New Year, everyone!

Just home from 5 days away visiting relatives. Is anyone NOT happy when they return home after being away?

As great as any vacation is, coming home is always soooo sweeeeeet. I am sitting on the couch, in my jammies, a glass of Pinot at my elbow, and a little dish of those little chocolate covered pomegranates that I love (and which will be banished from the house as of 2010 because as they say: “nothing tastes as good as thin feels.”)

I am in the same Starbucks as yesterday. There is no wifi where I’m staying so this is where I come to check email.

This morning I set up in a little corner table where 2 women were sitting having a conversation one table over from me in the opposite corner. It didn’t take me long to realize that they were having a very tense conversation.

I put my earphones in, but I could still tell by their body language that something very angry and accusatory was happening. One woman was calm and rather smugly telling the other one something. The one being “told” was getting redder and tighter by the moment. Then there was a long period where both of them stared out the window.

Then, suddenly, Smug Woman said something and the other woman broke into tears and grabbed her coat and stormed out the door.

Afterwards, Smug Woman sat and texted on her cell phone with a big grin on her face.

I am sitting in a Starbucks in North Carolina, Nora Jones is playing “Come Away With Me” on the sound system.

I have just written my January newletter to all my yoga peeps telling them about the New Year’s offerings.

When I am away from home it is really hard to keep up my rituals. I fall into the ritual patterns of the people I am around. I have been able to keep up with my Holosync, and hopefully I have enough time left on my wireless here to push “post” on this entry. But my pen writing has taken a hit.

When I am away, I miss my home, and when I am home, I often crave an adventure.

Funny, that.

I am still reviewing the past year, looking at things I want to change, to tweak, and to get rid of completely. I love the clean, new start of January. I even love that the new start happens in the coldest, darkest part of the year.

The seed goes into the dark ground and eventually the warmth will reach it and it will grow.

I am planting a writing project this year. I am planting a new body project this year. I am going to continue to water my meditation practice and build a higher and stronger trellis for it to climb up.

For me, this is the year of adventure and action. This is the year of Warrior 1.

I got some techy gifts (a new internet router and a new version of Wanda, my GPS) some clothes and of course, books.

But what I really wanted was not under the tree.

What I really wanted, and ask for every year and never get, was a big Box of Time.

I wish Amazon sold gift cards for the time it takes to read all the books they sell. Wouldn’t that be amazing? I think they need to get on that. Seriously.

I did get a book entitled, The Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo, which says it will help me “Reclaim Yesterday, Enjoy Today, and Master Tomorrow.”

I really doubt it, but who knows? It could happen.

But that’s not what I really want to do: I don’t want to reclaim yesterday or master tomorrow, I just want to feel like a day is a really long amount of time.

The last time I felt time slow down to the point where everything took it’s fair share and not more, or less, was when I was on retreat at Springwater.

When you go on retreat, you put your life on “hold” for awhile. You get off the gerbil wheel. Everything stops moving.

At first it’s unnerving and you hate it and try to make believe you’re still very busy and everything is critically important. You try to make the retreat into a job and you try to do everything perfectly and efficiently and ahead of schedule.

And then you realize that a day is already perfect in design and proportion and you just have to insert yourself into it.

On retreat I would spend whole afternoons, and I mean from 1PM to 4 PM, just lying on my back on the lawn, looking at clouds.

And at night, I’d sit out and look at stars.

It took an eternity to eat a bowl of oatmeal.

The day started before dawn and ended after dark. A day there was actually 24 hours long. An hour there took a whole hour and not it’s usual 15 minutes.

(I once worked for a woman who used to describe being “over-booked” as trying to “stuff 10 pounds of baloney into a 5 pound bag.” That’s a good image. I like the word “baloney” too. It resonates.)

I know it’s silly of me to want a Box of Time. Every day is already an empty box filled to the brim with time. The “art” of living a conscious, productive, amazing life, is to fill the box neatly and carefully.

It helps to imagine that all your activities are eggs. Each one needs its own spot. You can’t jam too many in, or they’ll all break and you’ll have a colossal mess on your hands. Only so many eggs can fit in a box and there has to be a little bit of space, a little bit of padding, between each one.

Part of my hope for this New Year is to pack the eggs better. I want to fill my basket with lots of eggs and have no broken ones at the end of the day because I will have calculated properly the length, breadth and depth of a single day.

I have come to the sad conclusion that Christmas is made of butter. This is unfortunate. I wish Christmas was made of kale and tofu and mineral water, but it isn’t. It’s made of butter cookies, and candied yams and fudge and Royal gin fizzes. And champagne. And “You have to have one of these, I only make them once a year!!”

And you have to.

The kale sits forlorn in the vegetable bin waiting for it’s day in the sun.

And that day is coming SOON.

Here is a picture of 659 hours of intervals on the treadmill and many dinners with kale as the centerpiece.

This morning I took all the food that was donated by all the yogarians over to the Food Pantry. I had never been to the Food Pantry, so had no idea what to expect.

It was small, and filled with, well, …food. The woman I had spoken to on the phone was there, and she and another woman were getting ready to open.

Eggs were being delivered and I had to “Stand aside!” as a man carrying eggs, barreled in.

I took the food in, and the woman behind the counter said, “This looks like a wonderful food drive!”

I thought, “Oh. A food drive…that’s what this was… I didn’t think of it that way, somehow… I just thought of it as, “Bring food and don’t pay for yoga.” I thought of it as, “Do a good deed! Bring food!”

But apparently it was a “Drive.”

Thing is, I don’t like to be driven. Driven is not all that yogic, you know?

What’s a better word?

How about, “give?” It wasn’t a drive, it was a give.

Yeah, that feels right.

And what do yoga people give to a food give? They give a lot of beans, and organic soups, and Kashi cereal. And they also give more of the things that people who come to the Pantry expect to receive, too: boxes of mac and cheese and stove-top stuffing, etc.